Wednesday, July 16, 2008

2. Run 10 kilometers, or get a black belt in a martial art.

COMPLETED 21 November 2009

It's my list, so I can change items at will. (My blog, my rules.) I put the "run a 10K" on here thinking that I could do it. I used to run a lot, and had run several 10K races. I sort of stopped when the kids were little. When I got back to it some 10 years ago, I'd run a bit each day, increase the distances, and then suddenly, I'd start to have a problem with my right foot hurting in a funny way. It felt something like an electrical shock going through one part of the foot. The real shocks came when I wasn't running. I'd be in bed at night, for example, when bam! foot shock! If I stopped running, the pain and shocks eventually went away only to return the next time I started running. I finally went to a sports medicine doctor about it. An x-ray and an MRI later, it appeared that at some point in my life I had broken a bone in my right foot, a break that didn't heal properly. I spent a month with the foot immobilized and not bearing weight, did various physical therapy things, and started running again. I thought it was going to be okay to the point of listing "run a 10K" among The Fifty. Alas, the pain and shocks returned after some months of regular running. The docs had told me that if immobilizing it didn't work, the alternative was surgery to put in a plate to hold the bones together.

Since I'd rather give up running than have surgery, I've accepted the fact that I won't be running a 10K. Getting a black belt in Myo Sim kendo seemed an appropriate alternative accomplishment. The physical training needed to get me to the black belt level was more than would have been needed to run a 10K, so I'm calling this one done.

2 comments:

You can do it, Jean. Are you talking about running in a 10k race or just running the distance? It's more interesting if you run roads than on a track somewhere, and if you're in a race rather than by yourself.

It's been a while since I did a 10k race (I think I only ever did one), but I could go the distance, albeit slowly. :-)

Janet, The problem with this one, as I will explain when I write it up, is that there's a problem with my right foot (they think I broke it once without knowing it) that makes regular running difficult. I start to get almost electric shocks in that foot, not while I'm running but later. I would probably have to do all the training in a very short period, run the 10K, which wouldn't have to be in a race, and then go through a couple weeks of discomfort. Not pain, just very weird stuff. I haven't ruled this out, but we'll see.

About Me

My business cards (I have two; they are useful in terms of drawings for free stuff) list me as "a woman with a sword" and a "world traveler." Both are true. Would I lie on a business card? I stepped off the full-time career path years ago and have no burning desire to get back on.